Bowling ball



G. KEITH BOWLING BALL July 8, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Jan. l6, 1957 nlllla -|4|||||||||||| G. KEITH BOWLING BALL July s, 1958 3 Sheets-Sheet3 Filed Jan. 16, 1957 6 n .15 74 If r I! i! if I! If ii it I INVENTOR United States Patent Oflice Patented July 8, 1958 BOWLING BALL Glenn Keith, Alexandria, Va. Application January 16, 1957, Serial No. 634,486

13 Claims. c1. 273-63) The present invention relates to bowling balls and the plurality of substantially radial openings for reception of the thumb and two fingers of the player, and comprises equipping each of the openings, or a selected one or more of them, with a more or less permanently installed liner having a plurality of compartments which are inflatable selectively at the option of a player to alter and adjust the position, size and analogous characteristics. of the opening.

General objects of the invention are to produce a standard type of ball which can be altered readily to suit the preference of an individual player and which can on occasion be readily modified and adjusted to accommodate another player.

Other objects are to provide the foregoing advantages in a ball of relatively simple and inexpensive construction which will be durable through a long period of use and which can be altered to provide a wide range of adjustments by a simple tool requiring no particular skill for its use.

Other and further objects and advantages will be apparent to those skilled in the art from the following specification in which the invention is explained in certain preferred forms of embodiment in which- Figure l is a perspective view of a bowling ball in which a preferred embodiment of the invention is incorporated;

Fig. 2 is a substantially radial cross sectional view taken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a transverse cross sectional view taken on the line 3-3 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 4 is a similar cross sectional view taken on the line '4-4 of Fig. 2;

Fig. 5 is a detail view taken on the line 5-5 of Fig. 4;

Fig. 6 is a top plan view of one of the finger openings shown in Fig. 1;

Fig. 7 is a radial cross sectional view taken on the line 7-7 of Fig. 6;

Fig. 8 is .a similar cross sectional view taken on the line 8-8 of Fig. 6;

Fig. 9 is a transverse cross sectional view taken on the line 9-9 of Fig. 8; g

Fig. 10 is a similar cross sectional view taken on the line 10-40 of Fig. 8;

Fig. 11 is a similar cross sectional view taken on the line 11-11 of Fig. 8; and

Fig. 12 is a radial cross sectional view, with portions shown in perspective, on an enlarged scale, of the opening shown in Fig. 7.

It is to be understood that these illustrations, and the embodiments which they depict, are selected merely to illustrate the invention and are not presented with any purpose of limiting the invention to the precise details of the illustrations except insofar as specified by the appended claims or required by the state of the prior art.

In the drawings, reference numeral 1 designates a bowling ball which may be conventionally formed as a sphere made of any customarily used hard material, such as wood, vulcanized hard rubber, or a solidified hard plastic composition, such as that which is extensively used under the trademark Ebonite.

The ball is provided with a cluster of three openings, hereinafter generically called digital openings, comprising an opening 2 for the thumb and openings 3 and 4 for two of the fingers.

It will be understood that in use the thumb and two fingers, generally the second and third fingers, of the hand of the player are inserted in the respective openings 2, 3 and 4, for grasping the ball in: the usual way preparatory to rolling it in play.

A principal purpose of the present invention is to provide the openings 2, 3 and 4 with liners which can be adjusted in the manner hereinabove explained to alter the position, etc., of the openings, so that a single ball will accommodate the individual preferences of a number of players or the changing preferences of a single player.

To this end each of the openings is drilled oversize and is provided with an adjustably inflated liner. The liners for the two finger openings 3 and 4 are preferably made identical and are diiierent from the liner provided for the single thumb opening The finger opening liners are adjustable to change the pitch, diameter and/ or span of the openings, while the thumb opening is adjustable to change its diameter and/or span.

The thumb opening 2, which is preferably made generally cylindrical, or at least of circular cross sectional shape, contains a substantially cylindrical insert 5 snugly secured in the opening by a press lit. The insert 5, best mladeof hard rubber or plastic, is held in place by a driven surface sleeve 6 which is preferably made of nylon or equivalent hard moldable material. The sleeve 6 overlies not only the top of the insert 5, but also a. radial flange 7 of a distendable liner or liner element 8. This liner 8, which has an axial bore or opening extending entirely through it, has its annular bottom seated on the floor 9 of the insert 5 and has a cylindrical ferrule 10 impressed between the top flange 7 and a lower flange ll. of the liner, with the ferrule and the two flanges seated in a counter-bore 12; formed in the upper end of the insert. It will be evident that the nylon sleeve 6, which is driven tight into the outer end of the opening 2, thus securely holds the assembly of insert 5 and liner 8 in place in the ball.

The liner 8 is made of resilient distendablc material, such as rubber, either natural or artificial, of limited elasticity, and is provided with a plurality of circumferentially arranged separate compartments 15. I prefer to provide four such. compartments, each of them spanning approximately degrees of the periphery of the liner and extending substantially the full length of the socket which terminates in the floor or bottom 9.

The bottom 9 of the insert 5 is drilled with an upwardly tapering bore to receive the complementally shaped plug element 18, made of hard moldable material, which is rotatably secured in the bottom 'by some such means as a metallic washer 19 held in place by a nut 20 threaded down over an upper portion 21 of reduced diameter in such away that the washer overlies the inner margin of the opening in the bottom 9 through which the plug extends. The plug, being frusto-conical in shape, is thus held against axial movement in the bottom but is free to rotate, and it can be turned by the insertion of a suitable tool into the opening defined by the liner 8 which can be engaged with a slot formed in the top of the reduced extension 21.

The plug 18 is axially bored, and the bore is closed at its bottom by a stopper 27, threaded in place and made of soft rubber or other resilient material, which holds a valve 28 up against a seat in the bore. The bore being open to the top of the plug, and closed at the bottom by the resilient stopper 27, and the valve 28 being made of hard material, the valve thus acts as a check valve, displaceable from its seat by fluid pressure from the open end of the bore and movable back against its seat by the resilience of the stopper 27.

The plug is provided with a single radial bore 30 which is registrable selectively with four radial bores 31 formed in the bottom 9 of the insert 5, each of which communicates with a vertical bore 32 in said bottom. Each bore 32 in turn is aligned with and hence communicates with a port 33 in the lower portion of one of the liner compartments 15, all as best shown in Fig. 5.

V The liner 8 is molded to have such an initial or substantially uninflated position and contour as will provide a thumb-receiving socket in the ball opening 2 having an inner diameter of maximum size and a shape of substantially cylindrical form. This shape is adapted to be altered upon inflation of one or another, or one or more, of the compartments 15, which is accomplished by pumping air through the axial bore of the plug 18, past the check valve 28. It will be evident that air for this inflat ing operation can be directed selectively into any of the compartments by rotating the plug 18 so that its radial bore 3t) will register with the appropriate vertical bore 32 in the bottom of the insert 5, and indicia lines 35 are formed on the top of the sleeve 6 to indicate the positions of the plug 18 in which the selective registries are elfected.

'Fig. 12 shows at it a type of pump useful in performing the inflating operation. This is simply a barrel 41 containing a plunger and having a radially outstanding lug 42 near its lower, orifice end for fitting the slot 25 for rotating the plug 18 in the maner of a key turning a lock barrel. A radially outstanding lug 44 may be formed at the upper end of the barrel 41 for indexing the rotation with relation to the indicia 35.

The pump may be so proportioned with relation to the valve 28 and the bore of the plug that the barrel can be used for unseating the valve to deflate any of the compartments. In that case the pump should contain a check valve in its plunger (not shown) so that reciprocation of the plunger rod will force air past the open check valve 23, in a well understood manner, without releasing any of the pumped air on the return stroke. In the alternative, the pump barrel may be proportioned so as not to touch the valve 28 when fully inserted in the axial bore of the plug 18, so that the pump plunger need not be provided with a check valve, in which case the compartments can be deflated by the insertion of any simple rod-like instrument (not shown) for depressing the valve 28 from its seat.

It will be evident that with the construction thus explained it is a simple matter to inflate or deflate selectively the several compartments 15 so that the socket formed by the liner in the opening 2 can be altered to adjust its size as well as its pitch and its effective distance from the other two openings 3 and 4.

Figs. 6-12 illustrate the preferred form of construction used for the finger openings 3 and 4.

The openings 3 and 4 are provided with fittings of identical construction. Each of them includes an outer element comprising an insert 50, surmounted by a sleeve 51, made respectively of the same kind of materials and in generally the same form as the corresponding elements comprising the fitting used in the thumb opening 2. However, the insert 50 is made in two parts, an outer member 52 and an inner member 53 which is nested in the outer member, as perhaps best shown in Fig. 7. The two members together form an assembly of the general shape and function of the insert 5. They include a floor or bottom 54 formed of parts of the two members which together are axially bored to provide an upwardly tapering conical opening receiving a frusto-conical plug 55 which is held against axial movement by a metallic washer 56 clamped in place by a nut 57 so as to overlie the upper margin of the bore. The nut is threaded on a reduced upper end portion 58 of the plug which has its upper edge radially slotted as at 59. The plug contains a valve 60 of hard material which is yieldably urged up against a seat in the bore by a resilient stopper 61, and the plug is provided with a single radial bore 62, all in the manner of the corresponding elements and features of the construction shown in Figs. 1-5.

The plug 55 is rotatable in the bore formed in the bottom 54 of the insert assembly 50 so as to register the radial bore 62 in the plug selectively with any one of four radial bores 63 formed in the interface between the two portions forming the bottom 54 of the insert assembly.

The interface between the cylindrical portions of the insert assembly is grooved to form two lengthwise bores 64 (Figs. 8 and 10) which extend up nearly to the top of the insert assembly; the inner member 53 of the insert assembly is provided with two lengthwise bores 65 extending up through the bottom or floor only of that member; and each of these lengthwise bores is connected at its lower end with one of the radial bores 63 in the insert bottom, as best shown in Figs. 8, 9 and 10.

The insert contains a liner element performing generally the function of, and made in a manner generally similar to, the liner element 8 of Figs. 1-5. However, the liner 70 is formed with four compartments, arranged in upper and lower pairs, each extending substantially half way around the periphery of the liner. The upper compartments are designated 71, 72 and the lower compartments 73, 74. The liner and the insert assembly are appropriately drilled to provide ports 75 connecting each of the lengthwise bores 64 with one of the upper compartments 71, 72, and the bottom of the liner is provided with a port 76 registering with each of the lengthwise bores 65 in the bottom of the inner member of the insert assembly. Fig. 8 shows one of these upper ports 75 and one of the lower ports 76.

It will be evident that upon rotation of the plug 55 the passageway formed by the axial bore and the radial bore thereof may be brought selectively into communication with either one of the two ports 75 or either of the two ports 76 so that, upon unseating of the valve 60, air may be pumped into or released from either of the two upper compartments 71, 72 or either of the two lower compartments 73, 74.

Inflation and deflation are accomplished by means of a pump 40, used in the manner heretofore explained and cooperating in the previously described way with the rotatable plug and the valve therein.

Thus each of the sockets provided as finger openings is adjustable by distending one or both sides of its upper zone and/or its lower zone so as to vary the effective diameter of the socket, or its position, or its location in the ball, within limits that depend on the size, location and position in which the fittings are made.

Indicia marks 80 are provided on the surface of the sleeve 51 and are used in the manner of the marks 35 of Fig. 1.

Installation of the fittings in the digital openings may be made by a press fit to insure against rotation of the inserts. To facilitate entry of the fittings into the openings, vening pinholes (not shown) may be provided through the insert bottoms. If desired, the fittings may be cemented in place, although this is in most cases not necessary.

Removal of the fittings is not contemplated during a long period of useful life of bowling balls embodying the invention. However, for repair or replacement of any of the parts, removal may be effected by first with drawing the sleeve 6 or 51 upon application of a suitable prying tool, after which it is a simple matter to retract the assembly of liner element, insert, valve plug, etc.

The invention has been described in preferred forms of embodiment, with the specification of suggested materials, simply for the purpose of exemplifying the inventive features. All such features, within the scope of the broader of the appended claims, may be modified without departing from the spirit of the invention.

I claim:

1. In a bowling ball having a plurality of digital openings each of substantially circular cross-sectional shape, means for adjusting the effective position of at least one of the openings comprising a liner having a plurality of compartments arranged about the inner circumference of the opening and provided with resilient inner walls, and means for separately inflating said compartments to selectively distend the inner walls thereof.

2. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner includes a bottom having valve means connected by a separate port to each of said compartments.

3. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner includes a bottom having valve means, a separate port radiating from said valve means to each of said compartments, and means for rotating said valve means for connection selectively with said ports.

4. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner includes a bottom having a separate port radiating from a central socket to each of said compartments and a plug rotatably mounted in said socket and containing a check valve and a passage connecting said check valve selectively with each of said ports on rotation of the plug.

5. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner contains a plurality of compartments each extending about a portion of the circumference of the opening and substantially the full length of the opening.

6. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner contains a plurality of compartments each extending about a portion of the circumference of the opening and substantially half the full length of the opening.

7. The combination claimed in claim 1 in which the liner contains an upper pair of compartments each extending around substantially half of the circumference of the opening and a lower pair of compartments each extending around substantially half of the circumference of the opening.

8. The combination claimed in claim 1, in which the ball contains three digital openings, each containing adjusting means as defined by the claim.

9. In a bowling ball having a plurality of digital ope ings each of substantially circular cross-sectional shape, means for adjusting the effective position of at least one of the openings comprising a liner having a plurality of compartments arranged about the inner circumference of the opening and provided with resilient inner walls, and means for separately inflating said compartments to selectively distend the inner walls thereof comprising valve means rotatably mounted in the bottom of the opening and connectible by separate ports selectively to said compartments on rotation of said valve means, said valve means including a surface formation engageable by a tool inserted through the digital opening for rotating the valve means.

10. The combination claimed in claim 9, including indicia formed on the ball, about the margin of said opening, for indicating the alignment of the ports of the valve means and the compartments.

11. In a bowling ball having a plurality of digital openings each of substantially circular cross-sectional shape, means for adjusting the effective position of at least one of the openings comprising a liner having a plurality of compartments arranged about the inner circumference of the opening and provided with resilient inner walls, means for separately inflating said compartments to selectively distend the inner walls thereof comprising valve plug means rotatably mounted in the lower portion of the opening and having ports separately and selectively connectible with said compartments, a pump tool engageable with said valve plug means for rotation thereof and inflation of said compartments, and cooperating index means on said pump tool and indicia formed on the ball about the margin of said opening for indicating the rotated position of the valve plug means relatively to the compartments.

12. The combination claimed in claim 11, in which the valve plug means is provided with a radial slot and the pump tool is provided with a complemental radial lug for interfit with said slot for effecting rotation of said valve plug means.

13. The combination claimed in claim 11, in which the valve plug means is provided with a radial slot and the discharge end portion of the pump tool is provided with a complemental radial lug for interfit with said slot for effecting rotation of said valve plug means, and in which the index means on the pump tool is a radial lug formed on the upper portion of the pump tool for cooperation with said indicia.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 

